


I'm Not Drunk, You're Drunk

by moonlight1130



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, F/F, Friendship, Life in the Horde, underage drinking but it's fine because they're stupid
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-15
Updated: 2019-11-15
Packaged: 2021-01-30 23:03:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21436150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonlight1130/pseuds/moonlight1130
Summary: Catra gets a hold of some Horde hooch and convinces Adora to try it out together for the first time. It's all fun until things get a little too personal.
Relationships: Adora/Catra (She-Ra)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 85





	I'm Not Drunk, You're Drunk

**Author's Note:**

> Pre-season one, they're around 16 or so (I put them around 18 or 19 in the show).

Adora twisted the cap off a glass bottle that Catra handed to her with a shit eating grin. The harsh stench of alcohol assaulted her senses, forcing her to hold the liquor at arm’s length. She blinked over and over, trying to stave off tears caused by the strong fumes. The clear liquid inside was most likely Horde back alley hooch, but could just as likely be fuel for a Class B skiff from the smell of it.

“Where the hell did you get this?”

Catra leaned back against a crate, looking quite pleased with herself.

“I have connections. A few of the senior cadets have a still system somewhere. And one of them owed me a favor.”

The pair sat across from each other behind a pile of spare tank parts, holed up in a storage room of the vehicle hanger. It was one of the numerous hiding spots they snuck off to after dinner to unwind before curfew. Catra dropped hints all day she had a special surprise for this particular evening, keeping tight lips whenever Adora tried to needle the truth out of her.

“You sure this won’t kill me immediately?”

“Live a little Adora, no one lasts forever.”

“Not wanting to die is living plenty!”

“Helen assured me it’s safe enough.”

Adora sighed.

“Have you tried this before?”

“No.. but that’s why I thought we could do it together.”

Adora turned the bottle over in her hands one more time, the smell of alcohol still irritating the tip of her nose.

“I don’t know, Catra.”

“Come on, are you scared I can handle it and you can’t?”

Adora rolled her eyes as Catra snatched the bottle out of her hands and took the first swig. She tipped the bottle upright and swallowed a mouthful. The effect was immediate. Tears stung the corners of her eyes and her face scrunched up in pain. A rough, uneven cough escaped her lips from the burn in her throat that traveled to her chest.

“...yep!.._*cough cough*_..it’s...good stuff.._*cough cough*_..Adora!”

Catra shoved the bottle into Adora’s hands and continued coughing into the crook of her elbow. Despite the self induced pain, Catra’s mismatched eyes twinkled with mischief. Adora knew exactly what she was trying to do. A challenge had been issued. One that would be held over her head with unrestrained malace and taunting until the end of time if she refused to rise to the occasion. Adora turned the bottle over in her hands for a moment, weighing the pros and cons in her head while Catra recovered her composure and flashed a cocky grin.

“Ah, what the hell..”

Adora tipped the bottle in Catra’s direction, raising it in a gesture she once saw Shadow Weaver use with a goblet of wine at a banquet for Hordak, and swallowed. 

There was no real flavor to the swill she somehow willfully ingested, except maybe an after taste of rusty metal and jet fuel. Adora’s torso hitched in a shudder as the bite of drink seared her tongue and back of the throat on the way down. The warmth of alcohol settled in her belly like hot embers in a furnace. She sucked in air through her teeth and nodded her head encouragingly at Catra before another shudder rippled through her body. 

“Bleh. Okay, we did it. Now what?”

Catra took the bottle back and set it between them on the concrete floor. The clear liquid swished back and forth inside before it settled, the container still mostly full.

“Um, I don’t know. It’s supposed to make you feel different. Do you feel different?” Catra asked.

Adora ran her fingers over her chest where the lingering tingle of alcohol settled uncomfortably under her sternum. She felt like her insides had been cleaned out with hot metal, but other than that she didn’t feel anything in particular.

“Maybe we need to drink some more?”

\---

“...ahahaha, how many reps are you gonna mess up until you finally fall over, Adooora.”

Catra lay sprawled across a bundled up tarp she pulled off a pile of broken turret parts. Her tail drifted slowly back and forth.

Adora swayed on her feet, one hand propped against the wall, the other holding the half-empty bottle of liquor. Every time she bent over to put the bottle down, the world rushed up to meet her eyes and she had to shuffle her feet to keep from falling down. Catra joked she looked like she was attempting a kettlebell exercise from training.

“You’re just jealous I’m super strong, and can balance real good and can do, other stuff, Catra. Ca-tra. Cat _rahh_.”

The usual lilt of her best friend’s name felt strange on her tongue. _Cat..ra_. Adora moved her lips in silence, trying to figure out the normal sound they were supposed to make. _Catra_. She lifted her fingers to her lips, noticing they felt numb and slow. Just like everything else floating on the fringe of her sight. 

“I, think you are drunk. Adora.”

Catra fell back against the tarp and laughed in a raspy staccato clip. After a beat, she moved to sit up but without any of her usual feline grace and nearly tumbled onto her face. It only made her laugh even harder.

The point of Adora’s shoulder blades dug into the concrete wall behind her, solid and steady against the rocking motion of everything else in the room. She gave up the effort to place the bottle on the ground, deciding instead to join Catra on her tarp. Adora made it across the room in a few strides, falling heavily beside her friend. 

She lifted a limp wrist and pointed her finger.

“I think you’re the one who’s drunk. Ca-te-rah.”

The glass container dropped between them with a soft thud against the canvas, the liquid inside too shallow to spill out when the bottom hit the ground.

“I mean, that was the point...”

Catra’s words slurred together, a drawl in her annunciation. She turned over towards Adora.

“I’m impressed you didn’t chicken out. Miss future force captain.”

Adora leaned back to close her eyes for a moment, thinking better of it as the world tilted too much. 

“I’m not as good as you might think. I can be insubordinate.”

Catra watched closely as Adora sounded out each syllable like a foreign word.

“Pffft, when have you ever been insubordinate in your life?”

Adora’s eyebrows knit together, her blue eyes grey and cloudy with thought.

“I’m...I’m being insubordinate right now! I do stuff people think I won’t do. I didn’t tell Shadow Weaver when Lonnie cheated on her Geometry exam. I lied about Kyle’s one mile time so he wouldn’t fail for the fifth try in a row. I cover for you when you’re late to training, or when you piss off the instructors.” 

“Oh yeah, you’re such a martyr, Adora,” Catra whispered. The reply came out sharp through the haze of intoxication.

Adora turned to her. 

“_Whaat’s_ that supposed to mean? You’re the one who’s always telling me to lighten up and not care as much.”

“That dumb stuff doesn’t mean anything, Adora. Geometry test? One mile? What does that even really matter. None of it involved you or could actually get you in trouble.”

“Are you serious??” Adora’s voice rose to a breathy shrill. “It could put any future promotions at risk if they knew I lied!!”

Catra shrugged her shoulders and rolled her eyes, but her usual flippant tone was less convincing than usual. The tips of her claws dug into the soft skin of her palm at her side.

“Yeah right Adora. We all know you can get away with anything in Shadow Weaver’s eyes. _Perfect Adora! Pride of the Horde!_ That old witch could walk in here right now with us piss drunk and I would be the only one to get the living shit beat out of me. Once for the drinking, and twice for getting you drunk.”

“That’s not..that’s not true!”

Adora’s head bobbed back and forth, the slur in her words growing more pronounced with every sentence. Her forehead wrinkled from how hard she seemed to be concentrating on the conversation.

“I would definitely get punished, are you kidding me? But I got drunk anyway! Because I always go along with your plans in the end.”

She flourished her arms and fell back dramatically. Catra scowled at her, then stared at a spot on the ceiling, annoyed by the turn of their conversation. Adora stayed silent for so long after her outburst Catra wondered if she fell asleep.

“And also _Catra_,” Adora said bolting upright. “If none of that stuff matters, why are you giving me a hard time about it?”

The hair on Catra’s back bristled. She stared at her knees and bit the inside of her cheek, not realizing a low growl escaped between her teeth.

“Catra?” 

Their shoulders were flush against each other where they sat on the tarp. Catra’s heartbeat spiked in her ears. The comfort of the closeness grew stifling and too much. Adora tried to place her hand on Catra’s forearm, but she moved it away. Nothing dramatic. A subtle shift of the elbow, but it said enough.

“Wait, are you mad at me?”

“We’re just drunk. Don’t read into something that’s not there.”

“Catra..”

Catra rolled to her side and onto her knees, leaning heavily against the crates around her for support as she rose to her feet. Everything moved back and forth like a pitching ship, no matter how still she held herself. Something screamed danger to where the conversation was taking a turn. The drunken cloud was not clearing, instead focusing on a place she was _not_ interested in talking about. 

“Come on,” Catra groaned between deep breaths, “we should get to bed before -”

Her ears twitched to the side as the inevitable sound of too much fun filled the storage room. Adora was on hands and knees, retching over and over off the edge of the tarp onto the concrete floor. Catra bit her lip, trying hard not to get sick herself from the sound. It wasn’t something she usually had an issue with, but she also wasn’t normally drunk off her ass when she held Adora’s hair back from a fever. 

The dry heaving stopped almost as fast as it began. Adora whimpered quietly, crawling a few feet away from the puddle of puke on the floor. Catra sighed, her anger flickering out before it ever grew into something else. With slow, deliberate steps she closed the distance to help her best friend. Because even if she was mad at Adora, she’d still always have her back.

“Alright cadet. Let’s get you to your bunk.”

Catra held her hand out. Adora lifted her head, eyes glassy and lidded with drunken fatigue. She took the outstretched palm, but Catra still needed to half drag Adora to her feet. 

As they turned to go, the back of Catra’s foot bumped into the glass bottle on the ground. It still had some Horde hooch left inside. She started to bend over and pick up the bottle, but her eyes swam and stomach flipped and she decided to leave the spoils of war alone. With one of Adora’s arms slung over her shoulder, the pair shambled back to their barracks.

“...so I guess we lived a little, huh?” Adora mumbled, barely coherent.

Catra chuckled.

“Oh yeah. And I won’t let you forget it for a loooong time.”

**Author's Note:**

> These two are such dumbasses, this was a lot of fun to write. Thank you for reading! Please leave a review!


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